Daily Archives: May 25, 2011

Authenticity and post-modern Christianity–but don’t expect me to get tattoos

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Last week, I posted a link to an article that quoted Bishop Greg Rickel of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, in which he likened the church in the twenty-first century to a base camp–not an end point on a journey, but a staging area. It’s an image I like because it captures what I’ve been encountering in Madison. People come to church for all sorts of reasons; we may see them for only a single service, perhaps a year or two if we’re lucky, then they are off on the next stage of their journey. Often their temporary stay is dictated by other realities–school or job change–but often it is because of life changes. And the latter is particularly new. Wade Clark Roof and other sociologists of religion saw such trends in American religion in the 90s–people participating in organized religion for a few years and then withdrawing.

Rickel has a great deal to say in another interview about what it’s like to be bishop in post-Christian America (i.e., the Pacific Northwest) after serving parishes in the South and Southwest. He also has interesting things to say about the importance of authenticity, good holy discourse and conversation, and good music. The interview is here.

Among the things he has to say about young adults:

I sense the younger generations looking for a fun place, yes, energy, good conversation, deep reflection about serious issues, but also a place where diversity of thought is honored and where they learn the life skills to keep that greater conversation going in their lives. In the midst of all of that they know the power of mystery, and don’t necessarily want a place of answers, but more a place of reflection, meditation, silence. True engagement, instead of the veneer of much of our religion, would be the more subtle but short way of saying it.

Bishop Rickel blogs here.

If authenticity is what matters, check out this profile of Nadia Bolz-Weber.

Bolz-Weber said her church is “anti-excellence and pro-participation.”

They sing the hymns a cappella rather than rely on a choir, organist or band. They divvy up the readings. They create their own artwork.

“We don’t do anything really well,” she said, “but we do it together.”

Bolz-Weber blogs here.

The Venerable Bede 735

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Bede was one of the great figures of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. He entered the great monastery at the age of 7 and writes later that he spent the rest of his life there and “devoted myself entirely to the study of Scriptures.” He compiled Patristic commentary on scripture and provided his own interpretation of that commentary, many other works, but most importantly, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. This work is the basis for much of what we know about Christianity on the island of Britain between the arrival of Augustine in 597 and 731. His work details the conversion of the Angles and Saxons to Christianity as well as the conflict between the Christian culture imported from Rome and that which had developed independently in Ireland and Britain over the previous centuries, symbolized by the different dating of Easter. This was resolved at the Synod of Whitby in 664.

He provides vivid portraits of many of the important figures of Anglo-Saxon history, and of many of the leaders of Christianity in that time, both men and women.

At the end of a brief autobiographical summary that concludes the Ecclesiastical History, Bede prays:

I pray you, noble Jesu, that as You have graciously granted me joyfully to imbibe the words of Your knowledge, so You will also of Your bounty grant me to come at length to Yourself, the Fount of all wisdom, and to dwell in Your presence for ever. (from the Penguin edition)